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Prevalence, Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children The |
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FEATURED ARTICLE *** Lufwanyama Villagers Riot Over Street Kids Irate villagers in Lufwanyama district damaged three Government vehicles and injured two policemen when they ran amok over Katembula Training centre street children who are allegedly terrorising people. The villagers in Chief Shimukunami’s area got incensed when their traditional ruler tried to calm them down during a meeting with Government officials, who included Copperbelt Permanent Secretary, Jennifer Musonda. The street children had fled the training centre, following hostility from the villagers.The villagers had risen against the youths and were demanding that they be taken away because they were allegedly harassing women and other people. ***
ARCHIVES *** UNICEF - The Big Picture U.S.
Dept of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Because HIV/AIDS claims the lives of many adults in the country, a
growing number of orphans have been forced to migrate to urban areas,
increasing the population of street children. In order to survive, many
orphans engage in various forms of work.
Street children are especially vulnerable to commercial sexual
exploitation, and the problem of child prostitution is widespread in [4288] In the city of Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 CHILDREN - There were approximately 1
million children under the age of 15 in the country who were orphaned,
approximately 750 thousand of these as a result of HIV/AIDS. These children faced
greater risks of child abuse, sexual abuse, and child labor. Approximately 75
percent of all households were caring for at least one orphan, and children
headed approximately 7 percent of households due to the death of both
parents. The government instituted programs to increase public awareness of
HIV/AIDS. There are laws that criminalize
child prostitution; however, the law was not enforced effectively, and child
prostitution was widespread. The presence of an estimated 30 thousand street
children in Lusaka contributed to the proliferation of street begging and
prostitution. The laws against pornography and the sexual exploitation of
children under the age of 21 were sporadically enforced. During the year the government
continued implementation of a strategy to provide shelter and protection to
street children, including prostitutes. The Ministry of Labor reported that
the majority of the five thousand children removed from child labor during
the year were street children. Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 2003 [36] The Committee notes the
information that children deprived of a family environment (orphans and other
vulnerable children) should be cared for by the extended family and that
foster care is supported by special fees paid to foster parents, but the
Committee is concerned that these forms of alternative care are not
sufficiently encouraged and supported. [68] The Committee expresses grave
concern at the high and increasing number of street children. In particular, the Committee notes their
limited access to health, education and other basic social services as well
as their vulnerability to police brutality, sexual abuse and exploitation. Most of the children face a bleak
future, without parents to care for them and with little, if any, assistance
offered by the government. The
children are often traumatized by the death of parents, stigmatized through
association with HIV and often thrown into desperate poverty by the loss of
breadwinners. They live under enormous pressure and suffer depression and
other psychological problems. Young
girls, in particular, are the first to be denied educational opportunities in
favor of boys and are forced into early marriages with older men, which put
them at higher risk of HIV infection. Children,
both girls and boys, turn to the streets in search of a better life but the
reality that confronts them can only be described as grim. Street life
creates extreme vulnerability to violence, exploitative and hazardous labor,
sex-work and trafficking. Zambia:
K3.9 Billion for Street Kids Programme Paid Out "The ministry has so far
removed 52 children in various streets of Lusaka and mostly at the Manda Hill
fly-over bridge out of which 38 boys have been placed at Fountain of Hope
Foundation children's home.
"These children are currently undergoing rehabilitation and will
soon be reintegrated into their families," Ms Namugala said. Families for most of the Lusaka children
have been traced and were being prepared to receive them. The other 398 children were
removed from the streets of Kitwe, Ndola, Kabwe, Solwezi, Kafue, and
Kapiri-Mposhi. Ms Namugala said 138 of
the children had been placed in children's centres for screening while 260 of
them were reintegrated into their families after they were screened. Government has empowered families of the
children with start-up capital for income generating ventures. Shelter
that gives hope to Africa’s street children Never say that they have nowhere
to go. They still dream about becoming future leaders who'll be respected
some time in their lives. It becomes so painful for them when they see their
friends being taken to school and this makes them feel bad and neglected. Probably they'll start thinking of
going back home. Unfortunately, they find it hard to leave the street because
they're wed to street life. Lubuto
Libraries Provide Haven for AIDS Orphans, Street Children Meyers, an American librarian who
spent many years in Africa, notes that for reasons ranging from lack of money
to prejudice, children orphaned by AIDS, as well as other street kids, often
are unable to attend school. The Lubuto Library will provide them ?an
opportunity to learn,? to improve their literacy and even to study for
secondary school entrance exams. Lufwanyama
Villagers Riot Over Street Kids Irate villagers in Lufwanyama
district damaged three Government vehicles and injured two policemen when
they ran amok over Katembula Training centre street children who are
allegedly terrorising people. The
villagers in Chief Shimukunami’s area got incensed when their traditional
ruler tried to calm them down during a meeting with Government officials, who
included Copperbelt Permanent Secretary, Jennifer Musonda. The street children had fled the training
centre, following hostility from the villagers.The villagers had risen
against the youths and were demanding that they be taken away because they
were allegedly harassing women and other people. State
Aims to Remove 6,000 Children From the Streets Billboards to educate the public
on the negative effects of encouraging street children through alms-giving would
be erected in many places, the minister said. She also said the Government would
enforce laws regarding child labour and would continue rounding up the
children to engage them in productive ventures while others would be taken to
reformatory schools. "Above all, as a Government,
we shall address the root causes that have made children go to the streets
mainly through empowering programmes after identifying families where these
children are coming from. ZAMBIA:
Getting street kids to stay on the straight and narrow Dressed in baggy trousers, caps
and colourful T-shirts, the toughened teens of the "Back to School
Project" were scared. The boys, all
between the ages of 14 and 18, live on the streets of Zambia's capital,
Lusaka, where they play, fight, gamble and do what they can to earn a little
money for food and drink, sometimes raking in enough to help support their
families. Each of the boys was to be tested for HIV that day. Efforts
to Rehabilitate Street Children Welcome Some have suggested that one of
the ways to solve the problem is to punish negligent parents. Another way to
tackle the problem would be to improve social amenities in the country where
most children could spend their pass time. It is more practical to invest in
structures which syphon children from the streets than simply donating
clothing and foodstuffs for them." Africa
adds to miserable ranks of child workers The boulders here are hard enough
that the scavengers who have taken over the abandoned quarry south of
downtown prefer not to strike them directly with their hammers. They heat the rocks first - with flaming
tires, scrap plastic, even old rubber boots - so that the stones will
fracture more easily. At dusk, when
three or four blazes spew choking black clouds across the huge pit, the
quarry looks like a woodcut out of Dante.
A boy named Alone Banda works in this purgatory six days a week. Nine years old, nearly lost in a
hooded sweatshirt with a skateboarder on the chest, he takes football-size
chunks of fractured rock and beats them into powder. Lacking a hammer, he uses a thick steel
bolt gripped in his right hand. In a
good week, he says, he can make enough powder to fill half a bag. His grandmother, Mary Mulelema, sells each
bag, to be used to make concrete, for 10,000 kwacha, less than $3. Often, she
said, it is the difference between eating and going hungry. Zambian
gov't plans to recruit 1,000 children living on streets The Zambian government is planning
to recruit about 1,000 children living on streets countrywide next month in
an effort to address the social problem caused by poverty and widespread
HIV/AIDS, The Post quoted an official as reporting on Monday. "There is so much interest
now as more children want to be removed from the streets and integrated into
these programs," Bobby Samakai, permanent secretary of the Sport, Youth
and Child Development Ministry, was quoted as saying. There are altogether 15 camps
allocated in the country's nine provinces providing basic skill training to
the recruited street children, said Samakai, adding that the criterion was to
take the most vulnerable who had no parents and nowhere to go first. Committee
on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights reviews initial report of Zambia -
2005 RESPONSE BY DELEGATION - Concerning the State party's
measures to deal with the crisis of widows, orphans, child-headed households
and street children, the delegation drew attention to the Micro Bankers Trust
which was created in collaboration with the Government and other partners to
provide small loans to poor but viable groups of people in order to support
their various businesses or income generating activities. The Public Welfare
Assistance Scheme assisted the most vulnerable groups of persons in society
in order to meet their basic needs, particularly in health, education, food
and shelter. The Government's support to street children was provided through
District Street Children Committees that implemented street children's
activities. Zambian
street children a time bomb The problem of street children
requires economic solutions, Restoration Ministries Reverend Cyril Phiri has
observed. Reverend Phiri who runs a
number of christian orphanages in Lusaka, said although the problem of street
children seemed partially solved with government’s introduction of Zambia
National Service (ZNS) camps, it still remains a time bomb. Reformed
Street Kid Embraces New Life A young man in Kitwe has a new
lease on life after spending eleven years in the streets, and he reveals the
vices that plague street children, including rampant homosexuality, STIs and
drugs. Dulu Chipampa, 22, who is now a
reformed adult and employed by Beautiful Gates, a non-governmental
organisation (NGO) assisting to rehabilitate street children in Kitwe, says
it is difficult for him to believe that he has come this far. Chitoba
Expresses Concern Over Drug Abuse Among Street Children "The vulnerable children are
one group which is prone to drug abuse under the influence of substances such
as Genkem, Bolstick and these substances have serious effects to their mental
development. The commission is working with government departments and NGOs
to address the plight of vulnerable children on the street who are abusing
substances that are not listed on the schedule such as genkem, bbolstick and
alcohol," he said. Chitoba said the commission has
plans to put up a rehabilitation center for street children to undergo
treatment without being pressurized into relapse by older street kids. He
said drug abuse and trafficking has continued to negatively impact on the
lives of children on and off the street. Aids
will orphan 20% of children by 2015 By 2015 about 20% of Zambia's
children will be orphaned by HIV/Aids, the Department of Foreign Affairs
warned on Monday. Current official
estimates indicate that over 1,1-million Zambian children are orphans, mostly
as a result of Aids. About 90 000
have the disease and thousands of others are directly vulnerable to abuse and
exploitation due to high poverty levels, a ministry statement said. Over 71% of Zambia's six million children
live in extreme poverty and deprivation, despite accounting for over half of
the country's 10,2-million people.
Reports further indicate that levels of sexually transmitted
infections among the hundreds of street children are also high. SOS Children: Zambian Street
Children • Over 30% of all children under the age of 15 are
orphans Zambia-s 1.5
million street children One and a half million children in AIDS Orphans Join The
Rank Of Street Children They swarm the central business district of Lusaka
like invading locust, hungry, aggressive and destructive. They move around in menacing little bands,
darting away for cover when the police appear, only to re-emerge with renewed
determination when the coast is clear.
They are Street Children
High On Sewage At the Sex work rife among
street children Commercial sex work has become increasingly common
among children aged 14 to 16. When
educated about the danger of HIV/AIDS, they say that AIDS is something in the
future and that their hunger is a more real and pressing need. Bleak
outlook for Zambia's street kids UNICEF estimates more than 75,000
children living on the streets of As Adults Lose
Jobs, Children Bring in Wages Of the male population aged seven
and above, 57% are engaged in an economic activity. The ballooning problem of child labor is
attributed to rising job losses among parents as companies buckle in HIV/AIDS And Child Labor In
Zambia Job types: vending on the street
and in markets, quarrying and stone breaking, fetching water, porterng
(kuzezera), household chores or domestic work, digging wells and garbage
pits, carpentry, cooking nshima in the markets, cutting grass, picking
bottles, and prostitution earnings: the financial contributions of the child
were often the only income their families had. Street Children From Other Towns Flood Livingstone http://allafrica.com/stories/200504100144.html Livingstone has experienced an influx
of economic street children from other towns.
Most of them were being sent by parents to beg on the streets to
support their families. The Protection Project - Zambia [DOC] FACTORS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO THE
TRAFFICKING INFRASTRUCTURE - HIV/AIDS, coupled with poverty, has contributed to the
proliferation of street children and child labor in Zambia. About 80 percent
of Zambia’s population lives in degrading conditions. Poverty pervades both
rural and urban areas, pushing most women, adolescents, and children into the
informal sector of the economy, where they sell a variety of goods, their
labor, or their bodies. Prostitution is rife in major towns and smaller urban
areas. Nearly 1 million children are reportedly orphaned in the country, and
75,000 live on the streets. Nearly half of Zambian children, regardless of
orphan status, are not enrolled in primary s.
- htsccp Information
about Street Children - Zambia [DOC] Background: 47% of the population
under 18; life expectancy at birth is 37 years; estimated 75,000 street
children in 1996; HIV prevalence rate of 20% for adults between the ages of
15 and 49; estimated number of orphans between 600,000 and 1.2 million.
Street children are very mobile between cities; 1. The linked article has been
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Human Trafficking in [Zambia] [other countries]Street Children in [Zambia Child Prostitution in [Zambia] [other countries]